Thursday, November 1, 2012

NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg Endorses Obama for "Climate Change", NY Governor Cuomo Wants Everyone to Chip In to Make Up For Lost Revenues "in the World's Financial Hub"


The very predictable meme of "Hurricane Sandy was caused by global warming (now morphed into "climate change" for many, as in the case of Mayor Bloomberg)" has quickly spread, and now it's the reason for presidential endorsement. And everyone outside New York should pay for the lost economic revenue in New York.

First, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Op Ed piece (11/1/2012):

A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change

The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast -- in lost lives, lost homes and lost business -- brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief.

The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially shut down, and many city residents and businesses still have no power. In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods -- something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable.

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be -- given this week’s devastation -- should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan -- PlaNYC -- has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group -- a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities -- local governments are taking action where national governments are not.
Leadership Needed

But we can’t do it alone. We need leadership from the White House -- and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year.

...One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.

Of course, neither candidate has specified what hard decisions he will make to get our economy back on track while also balancing the budget. But in the end, what matters most isn’t the shape of any particular proposal; it’s the work that must be done to bring members of Congress together to achieve bipartisan solutions.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both found success while their parties were out of power in Congress -- and President Obama can, too. If he listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago and lead our country toward a better future for my children and yours. And that’s why I will be voting for him.


(Full article at the link)

Governor Andrew Cuomo wants the federal government to pay for the expected 6 billion dollar economic damage because of Hurricane Sandy. What damage?

From Yahoo News quoting Reuters (10/31/2012):

Governor Andrew Cuomo said he is asking fellow Democrat, President Barack Obama, to pay 100 percent of the estimated $6 billion bill, at a time that state and local government budgets remain constrained by a weak economic recovery.

... Cuomo said in a letter to Obama that "initial estimates project up to $6 billion in lost economic revenue in the greater metropolitan area and the state" due to disruption to business in the world's financial hub.


Yes, the world centers around New York, and Wall Street. Everyone should worry about the well-being of New York and Wall Street. Indeed, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke successfully threatened the Congress to authorize $700 billion TARP money in 2008 fall to bailout the US and international financial institutions.

Meanwhile, some New Yorkers are busy dumpster-diving for scraps of food, as partisan pundits ridicule Romney for trying to collect and distribute relief goods instead of collecting money for Red Cross so that Red Cross can buy stuff. So, where's Red Cross, distributing food?

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, some New York businesses and property owners didn't take advantage of federally subsidized flood insurance and were too cheap to buy business interruption endorsement, but expect the rest of the country to pay for their losses through tax dollars. It seems the lessons of Katrina have been learned: behave irresponsibly, and when disaster strikes, demand a bailout.

Anonymous said...

Likewise both Transit Authority and Port authority were totaly surprised that water would flow down the subway shafts. Did they expect water to flow up? There was a condemning report after the hurricane season of 2005, and they chose to do nothing (except lowering wages of course). Use of sandbags against some patents in the US? OMG.

Recalls a five-letter firm that investigated tsunami heights, found out that they might be pretty high, and did nothing until 2011-3-11.

Ron

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Goldman Sachs' headquarter building had not only the backup generators but tons of sandbags at the front door. I guess all sandbags in NYC went to Goldman.

Anonymous said...

Romney and Obama have both avoided directly linking Sandy to global warming but I just saw a news item where Romney was doing some last minute campaigning in Virgina and a single protester held up a global warming banner and claimed Sandy was a product of a warm planet. The protester was led off by police while Romney did his best to ignore the interruption.

While I agree a bail out isn't the least bit deserved unfortunately it is right before a major election and neither candidate wants to piss off the electorate. The majority of people who benefited from Katrina were rich (and white) if you go to the poor sections of the gulf states you won't see much restoration 7 years after the storm. A lot of this is due to speculators hoping to buy up abandoned property at cut rate prices.

New York will get a lion's share of the free money because of the density of rich folks. You can be sure New York politicians will be clamoring for global warming relief funding to protect their woefully inadequate infrastructure. If Washington sends money it will promptly be added to the general fund and upgrades will be forgotten until the next storm.

On a side note if you want to know who will win the election pay attention to the Washington Redskins vs the Carolina Panthers this Sunday. It is called the Redskins Rule and it is pretty accurate at predicting the election.

"In 17 of the 18 contests in which the Redskins suited up before an election -- beginning in 1940 when the Redskins beat the Steelers and Franklin D. Roosevelt kept his presidency by vanquishing Wendell Willkie -- a Washington victory at home has signaled the incumbent party would keep the White House while a defeat has meant the opposite."

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/eye-on-football/20774523/a-redskins-victory-vs-panthers-means-obama-wins-loss-means-romney-wins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redskins_Rule

Anonymous said...

It might be interesting indeed to consider the FukuShima plant desaster and the Sandy Storm. And have a look at how people prepare and respond to them.
They are those who choose not the believe what scientist say and only need to wait for the disaster to wake up.
Indeed there is the 11.3 quake and you switch your blog from finance analysis to become almos a Green activist to watch Tepco and government attitude.
But about Ze Global Warming (GW) ... no you are still in denial. When I say GW I do not say that Sandy is a sign of it of course

Anonymous said...

I vaguely remember that it was the "global cooling" that was going to destroy the planet, back in the 70s. What happened to that?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

I don't think I'm "Green" with capital letter. I'm all for clean nat gas and coal.

I switched from financial blog because my family members and friends were in harm's way in Japan.

Anonymous said...

"I'm all for clean nat gas and coal."

Clean coal is an oxymoron. Why else would a charlatan like Obama be promoting it?

Anonymous said...

Some people believe dinos farted the climate into uninhabitable conditions, rendering themselves extinct. Take that as you will.

Anonymous said...

"I vaguely remember that it was the "global cooling" that was going to destroy the planet, back in the 70s. What happened to that?"

What happened was science, GC never made it out of the conjecture phase:

"Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. This hypothesis had little support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understanding of ice age cycles. In contrast to the global cooling conjecture, the current scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth has not durably cooled, but undergone global warming throughout the 20th century."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Anonymous said...

"Clean coal is an oxymoron. Why else would a charlatan like Obama be promoting it"

Probably because he's trying to keep up with the Republican douchebags that came up with the term and were the first to support it. Romney goes as far as to claim Obama is waging a war on his best buddy coal.

Romney said “I like coal. I’m going to make sure we’re going to be able to burn clean coal.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/03/romneys-i-like-coal/

And let's not forgot the other moron that supported clean coal

"Bush urges clean coal technology for electricity"

http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_580555.html

I've got news for you the office of the president doesn't serve the people it serves corporate interest regardless of which side of the fence they stand on. Coal, oil and nuclear give both side obscene amounts of money to see things their way.

Anonymous said...

@1:29,
Dinosaurs lived for close to 135 million years on this planet and most probably were not the architects of their own demise.

Homo sapiens...?

Anonymous said...

"I've got news for you the office of the president doesn't serve the people it serves corporate interest regardless of which side of the fence they stand on."

Actually this is no news to me and I agree with what you wrote, with one proviso: Bushama, Obromney and Rombama are in fact on the side to the political fence -- the corporate side. The Democrats and Republicans are a single party, the party of corporate rule.

The reason I don't waste my breath criticising Bush or Romney is that, unlike Obama and the Democratic Party, the likes of Romney and Bush are quite honest about who's interests it is they are there to serve.



Anonymous said...

@6:47AM
I didn't say I believed it. I was just giving an example of how silly climate change theories can be.

Anonymous said...

"Probably because he's trying to keep up with the Republican douchebags that came up with the term and were the first to support it."

Oh, puleez, spare us the hopium. Obama is a creature of the coal, oil and nuclear power industries, no less than Bush was or is. He's just better at hiding it.

Anonymous said...

@11:01AM

"Some people say the dinosaurs smoked tobacco and all died of cancer".

I'm not saying I believe it. I am just giving an example of how silly anti-tobacco "theories" can be.

Anonymous said...

"Oh, puleez, spare us the hopium. Obama is a creature of the coal, oil and nuclear power industries, no less than Bush was or is. He's just better at hiding it".

Sorry no hopium here "Just the facts, ma'am".

"In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. Department of Energy conducted a joint program with industry and State agencies to demonstrate the best of these new technologies at scales large enough for companies to make commercial decisions. More than 20 of the technologies tested in the original program achieved commercial success."

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/cleancoal/

Who was running the show when the DOE first started looking into clean coal? Let's see the late 1980's was the end of the Reagan era the early 1990's was Bush Sr. The Republicans pushed clean coal into the national agenda and they will politically skewer anyone foolish enough not to champion the cause. The fact is coal, clean or not is going to stay a major source of power for the world especially in heavily populated fast growing nations like China and India. The US is going to have a hard time weaning themselves off coal when the rest of the world is burning it as fast as they can dig it up. This is why the Republicans came up with this clean coal hokum to PR their way out of the problem.

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/cleancoal/

Coal employs a lot of people that vote so Obama is a creature of coal BUT he didn't start this clean coal BS he's just forced to kowtow to it. John McCain only implied that coal had to clean up its act and he lost the election. This wasn't the only factor but it doesn't help matters that teabaggers don't know jack when it comes to the history of stuff.

"To their credit, both John McCain and Barack Obama have implied that building new coal plants with existing technology isn't acceptable. (Obama's climate-change proposals are stricter on emissions—and, as a result, more likely to ensure those plants don't get built.) But neither candidate appears too eager to advertise that point in the coal-rich swing states where the election may be decided. At that point, clean coal starts sounding a little more like dirty politics instead."

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/10/what_the_heck_is_clean_coal.html

Anonymous said...

"he's just forced to kowtow to it."

Sure, the devil made him do it. Just as the devil made him sign the NDAA, kill and maim thousands with drone warfare, escalate a criminal war in Afghanistan, jail and torture Bradley Manning for (allegedly) exposing crimes of the state, etcetera etcetera.

And we all know that in the partisan theology of the liberal Democrats, the devil is Republican.

As a radical opponent of the dollarcracy, I have no use whatsoever for bourgeois and corporate politicians, whether they market themselves Republican or Democrats.

Your long-winded and sanctimonious liberal apologetics for that changeling, war criminal and stooge of the ruling classes, Obama therefore bore me to tears.

Anonymous said...

Sorry no hopium here "Just the facts, ma'am".

One fact that the liberal Democratic smokers of hopium consistently ignore is that the ruling class offensive known as "Reaganism" actually began under the Carter regime. The only innovation of the Reagan regime did was deepen and carry to a logical conclusion the domestic and international policies that had already been set in place by Jimmy Carter and Paul Volker.

See, for example, Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War [Paperback] by Dennis Perrin

http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Mules-Democrats-Endless-War/dp/1844672654

Anonymous said...

Boy this blog is really starting to suck. Every time I read here recently I end up asking myself why?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Sorry to hear that anon above.

Anonymous said...

From anonymous to arevamirpal about the capital G.

I said almost Green I might have said green :-)
I was in harm's way with my family and that is precisly my point.

You switch the topics of your blog I think in front of the payback of reality against the biased risk management attitude of people seeking profit :-) ... in financial world we also see that.

Please consider the GW in a unbiased scientific attitude there is no need to take side.

Anonymous said...

That's really funny, anon at 7PM. Global warming is a science? Thanks for the laugh for the day.

Anonymous said...

@11:18 PM
We have no proof that dinosaurs smoked, though.

If you didn't know, people have argued that cows farting causes climate change and warms the planet. It's the same theory applied to dinosaurs, and they use that as an example as well.

In reality, everything's been farting for centuries. That's why it's silly.

Anonymous said...

To anon at 7:09PM

Yes Scientifics study Global Warming and make publications debates refute theories perform measurements, build huge computer models, states facts, correct measures, doubt about all this, try again, etc .. I am talking about science yes.

Not talking about the Global Warming of newspapers. But if you want newspapers to start having a look a publication papers please go there if you understand French.
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/terre/

There also a very interesting follow up of FukuShima events as well

Anonymous said...

Looks like Panthers won. Now what?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2012/11/04/nfl-redskins-rule-romney/1681023/

Anonymous said...

"I am talking about science yes."

Science? Rather a waste of time here. We are committed to fighting the lies of the nuclear industry and Tepco... with the lies of the fossil fuel industry, BP, ExxonMobil, etc.

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